plumbus-nine
Bluelighter
It's generally known and accepted that opioids suppress testosterone in male rats and men, not or less so in women (jealous of that indeed), thus leading to hypogonadism; buprenorphine less so than morphine and methadone, and not just testosterone but general adrenergic insufficiency, that it's directly related to tolerance and that testosterone replacement improves some specific symptoms like weakness, fatigue, loss of libido, anemia, guess muscle wasting and obesity and this is inversed by naltrexone, even low doses appear to help. That a single dose of morphine is enough to cause long lasting suppression, and hyperalgesia, intolerance to coldness. Yet I've never heard of levels being checked in chronic pain or opioid maintenance people, let alone them being offered replacement therapy.
Now a pretty theoretical theory of mine is that NMDA antagonists might actually cause the opposite (I've seen conflicting data, possibly structure and/or dosage related as we have mostly data about anesthesic dosages, also there're differences between the sexes) which I've seen a speculation about here on BL some years ago - it was about arylcyclohexylamines possibly being steroid mimetics - but then still would cause suppression in the long run when the body reacts to stimulation with downregulation.
Do you guys think this might be the explanation for why long term opioid use is depression inducing and which are the mechanisms behind, peripherally or centrally mediated, indirect stimulation or direct agonism etc?
Now a pretty theoretical theory of mine is that NMDA antagonists might actually cause the opposite (I've seen conflicting data, possibly structure and/or dosage related as we have mostly data about anesthesic dosages, also there're differences between the sexes) which I've seen a speculation about here on BL some years ago - it was about arylcyclohexylamines possibly being steroid mimetics - but then still would cause suppression in the long run when the body reacts to stimulation with downregulation.
Do you guys think this might be the explanation for why long term opioid use is depression inducing and which are the mechanisms behind, peripherally or centrally mediated, indirect stimulation or direct agonism etc?
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